


Finding You. Again.

by flipflop_diva



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Made For Each Other, Michael can't keep them apart, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Maybe there was a reason Eleanor's supposed soulmate wasn't actually the perfect soulmate Michael had promised. Maybe that reason had something to do with the guy down by the lake. And the woman in the restaurant.





	Finding You. Again.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/gifts).



> Written for Karios for the 2017 Night on Fic Mountain fest. I hope you enjoy!

The first time she saw him she was wandering through the main part of town.

Okay, no, that was a lie. The first time she saw him she was creeping through the main part of town, trying to stay hidden. It wasn’t that the The Good Place wasn’t _good_ or that her soulmate wasn’t _perfect_ … 

Alright, fine, it was exactly that. The Good Place wasn’t really the heavenly paradise everyone on earth always proclaimed it would be and her soulmate definitely wasn’t the perfect match one would expect from a soulmate.

The guy was handsome, sure. Insanely handsome. That much was true. And oh, wow, yes, was he good in bed. They got along that way like fireworks exploding.

But it was just … well, maybe Eleanor just figured that if soulmates were real and all that stuff that she and hers would actually have something in common apart from sex. If she had to be with this dude for eternity, it would be nice to be able to converse with him about something.

But so far, nothing. It was like talking to a wall. Worse, really, than talking to the wall of clowns that so hideously decorated their house. And so she had escaped, just for a bit, keeping close to the edges and watching all the other couples, noticing that all of _them_ seemed to be able to actually hold conversations.

And then she saw him. On the opposite side of the street, walking in an entirely different direction than her. Maybe it was because he was the only other person out there not seemingly attached to the hip with a soulmate. Maybe it was because she had never seen him before, and this town wasn’t _that_ big — how could she have missed him?

But for some reason that she couldn’t explain at the time, she looked up, saw him and felt something shift inside her. And she had to talk to him. She _had_ to, even though she never had any desire to talk to anyone ever. Here or back when she was alive.

“Forking Good Place,” she cursed as she hurried after him, dodging couples and dogs and janitors sweeping up the non-existent trash and dirt.

He was rounding a corner, heading toward the lake, when she finally caught up with him, panting and breathless and flushed.

He must have heard her because before she could call out or think of her next move, he had turned around. She glanced up. Their eyes met.

And something she had never felt before washed over her. 

It was almost like she knew this guy.

“Do I know you?” he asked, and Eleanor wondered if he was feeling it too. She looked around, though, to double check there was no one else in the vicinity and he really was talking to her.

There wasn’t.

She tried to act nonchalant. “Me?” she said. “Uh no. Not at all. Never seen ya before.”

“Hmmm.” The guy frowned, lifting a hand to push his glasses a little further up on his nose. Then he frowned more. “Did you follow me?”

“What?” Eleanor said, with her most “How could you ask me that?” face. “Of course not!”

“Just … you’re all flushed and panting.”

“Oh, that. Out for a run.”

“You don’t have running clothes on.”

Eleanor shrugged. “Don’t need them,” she said. “Seems silly to waste a whole new outfit on exercise.”

“Okay,” the guy said, slowly, drawing out the words. “Are you sure I don’t know you?”

“Never seen you before,” Eleanor replied. “But since you’re here and all.” She stuck out a palm. “Eleanor.”

He met her grip. A shock ran through her at his touch. His hand was warm, comforting. Safe somehow.

“Chidi,” he said, and Eleanor stared. The note Janet had given her was still in her pocket.

Fork. She had found Chidi.

•••

The first time they saw her they were eating breakfast at one of the restaurants in town, sitting at the table in the furthest corner and hoping their soulmates didn’t find them. Although it was getting hard because both of them definitely suspected something.

“Probably because we are never actually with them,” Chidi had pointed out the evening before.

“Oh, don’t be so sensible all the time,” Eleanor had replied.

They had been spending time together since they met by the lake and Eleanor had shown him the note Janet had given her when she first arrived.

“It’s your handwriting?” Chidi had questioned.

“Yup,” Eleanor said. “But I don’t remember writing it. Plus I didn’t even know what a Chidi was.”

“Who Chidi was,” Chidi corrected.

“I didn’t know you were a who,” Eleanor argued.

But it was more than that too. Sure, some alt version of herself had wanted her to meet this guy, but she found herself liking him. Really liking him. They were so different — heck, he was the stuffiest, most unfun guy she had ever met — but they could talk and he seemed to get her. Even more odd, she got him too.

“You ever feel like we’ve met before we met?” Chidi often said.

“Ughhh,” Eleanor always replied. “All the forking time.”

The morning they met _her_ , Chidi had been telling her about the book he had been working on when he died. She had been hardly listening, instead counting the chocolate chips in her pancake and trying to decide if she had been cheated out of the proper amount, when the door had opened and the little bell that announced an arrival clanged softly.

Later, Eleanor wouldn’t remember why she looked up — why did she care who entered the restaurant after all? Unless it was her soulmate. Or Chidi’s. Maybe that’s why she had looked up? — but she had. And there she had stood, white dress blowing in the non-existent breeze, hair curled just perfectly, a smile that looked so sweet it seemed fake plastered on her face.

She turned, if by instinct, toward where Eleanor and Chidi were sitting, and they both saw her face change, a quick flash of something across her face.

She took the table next to them.

“I’m Tahani,” she said.

Chidi introduced them. “Eleanor.” He pointed; Eleanor nodded. “Chidi.” He glanced at the open chair at their table, like it had been put there by the Architects to make this moment happen.

“Do you want to join us?”

“Why yes, I would love to!” Tahani said.

It would be months later before Eleanor would remember seeing Michael’s face at the exact moment Tahini sat down, would remember seeing the horror that crossed over it. It would be even longer until she realized why.

But at the time, at that table with Chidi and Tahani, she only knew one thing.

Despite a soulmate who was supposedly perfect for her, for the first time since she had arrived in The Good Place, she really did feel like she was finally in the place she was meant to be. And with the two people she was meant to be with.

She had a feeling Chidi and Tahani felt that way, too.


End file.
